The movement's mysticism has also brought a preoccupation with the demonic world and a complex system of doctrines and prayers have come into being, all based upon pure speculation as to what goes on in this realm.

The Bible really gives us very little detail about the spiritual world; the principles operating there are only hinted at in a few sentences. Imagine for a moment that you had never seen the human world and had no idea of its history, what it contained or how it worked, you had never seen, much less known, a human being. On the basis of hints in a few sentences, how accurate an understanding of our human world do you think you could come to? Yet this is all the basis there is for many strange doctrines concerning the spirit world that have evolved as part of the movement (13) . There is not enough space to detail them here; suffice it to say that Christians are being led to believe they control the hand of God and effect the spirit realm through mystical ''warfare'' prayers, declarations, dances, and performing symbolic rituals.

Many Christians do not realize that these doctrines are not biblical. Trusting believers are absorbing pagan doctrines, like casting ''territorial demons'' out of cities, going up to high places to pray, annointing street signs with oil, and spending more time reviling demons than in God's word. It is becoming accepted that Christians are commonly demon-possessed, and are even subject to such things as ''family curses'' and historical demons (these are the kinds of superstitions Christ came to set us free from!)

None of these ''warfare'' ideas were taught or practiced by Christ's Apostles. When Paul went to Athens, he did not waste time annointing the street, 'marching for Jesus,' or casting out a territorial demon- he simply and clearly presented the gospel to the people's minds, to be accepted or rejected. In the scriptures, preoccupation with demons is connected with false teachers and dangerous overconfidence -

...these men, also by dreaming... revile angelic majesties... these men revile the things which they do not understand... Jude 8-10

Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties... 2Pet 2:11

...delighting in... the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head... Col 2:18-19

It makes me very apprehensive to see the three areas the movement is most identified with -prophecy, demonism, and obsession with the miraculous- described in one verse:

''Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.' Mt 7:22